This post briefly reviews preliminary releases of the new study conducted by Brian Ray for HSLDA called “Homeschooling Across America: Academic Achievement and Demographic Characteristics.” The full study is scheduled for release in November 2009.

While the full report has not yet been published, HSLDA has already posted a press release describing its scope and celebrating its finding that homeschoolers score on average 36-37 percentage points higher than public schooled children on a wide range of standardized tests. (more…)

This blog is usually not really bloggy, in the sense that I don’t normally comment on other blogs posting about this or that passing tidbit. But today I’ll break from my normal modus operandi for a truly remarkable tidbit.

Yesterday I read on Rod Dreher’s “Crunchycon” blog that Howard Ahmanson, the famous Orange County Billionaire whose funding has long been of vital importance to conservative Christian causes, had become a Democrat. From the perspective of homeschooling history, this is amazing. (more…)

Jones, Associate Professor of Sociology at Grove City College, here offers a fascinating book about the history of private religious education in America. It’s not a straightforward chronological history but rather a thematic look, showing in chapter after chapter how common themes have animated the Catholic school movement of the 19th century, the Jewish day school movement of the mid 20th century, and the Protestant day school and homeschool movements of the more recent past. (more…)